# The amazing "Dogma" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 5, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007 "2003-02-05T18:23:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/21 "2003-02-06T01:29:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Asylum \* > \*\*I respect your opinion, but what does his making comic books have to do with the movie? \*\* Smith, having started out as a comic book writer. confused what works in a comic book with what works in a screenplay. To be more blunt, the shit monster scene was an adolescent boy’s idea of what’s funny or entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Epigramcracker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Epigramcracker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epigramcracker)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/22 "2003-02-06T01:44:03Z")
okay, any movie that has alan rickman as the voice of god gets my two thumbs up. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/23 "2003-02-06T01:46:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Barbarian \* > **Talk about missing the whole point of the film. Strict Roman Catholicism is often about the rules before the spirituality. . . .** Oh, to the contrary, I got the point of the film: that Kevin Smith _shares_ that fascination of rules over spirituality. He dredges up arcania and dwells on it. Catholicism has moved on from the middle ages. But you wouldn’t guess from _Dogma_. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/24 "2003-02-06T01:49:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*Smith, having started out as a comic book writer. confused what works in a comic book with what works in a screenplay. To be more blunt, the shit monster scene was an adolescent boy’s idea of what’s funny or entertaining. \*\* While I agree with you that about comic writing not translating too well to screenwriting, I still don’t see how the last sentence relates to the first two sentences. ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/25 "2003-02-06T02:05:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\* Many praised _Dogma_ for addressing theological issues in a mainstream Hollywood movie. I on the other hand found Smith’s take on religion more as an elaborate Dungeons & Dragons game to be played, lots of arcane rules to be followed. There was a shallowness to the spirituality. I agree. It seems to me that you have to be Catholic to “get” the movie–my husband loved it. I was very annoyed by the “saved by loopholes and technicalities” theme of the movie–it was, as others have said, very tedious. All I know is that Kevin Smith managed to strike a chord with my husband, but he completely missed the boat with me (Protestant-raised agnostic). I did like the “Buddy Christ” and the idea that banishment to Wisconsin would be worse than Hell, but after that, I was completely lost. The end was a gory, confusing, disgusting muddle. ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/26 "2003-02-06T02:05:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*Smith, having started out as a comic book writer. confused what works in a comic book with what works in a screenplay. To be more blunt, the shit monster scene was an adolescent boy’s idea of what’s funny or entertaining. \*\* That would be _wrong_. Kevin Smith started out as a film student who put his flm Clerks on his credit cards. He didn’t write a comic book until years later for the now defunct Oni Press, then Marvel Comics, and finally DC. There are many FINE writers in comic books, such as: Neil Gaiman, JMS from Babylon 5 fame, Alan Moore and many others. Your opinions about Dogma are quite clear, if in my opinion quite wrong and clueless. You augment and reinforce your aura of cluelessness by making such smarmy remarks about comic books. ---
**Author:** ![cuauhtemoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/27 "2003-02-06T04:05:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Miller \* > \*\*Probably my least favorite Kevin Smith movie. Most of the dialogue was apparently taken verbatim from my high school bong sessions, but was delivered up like it was some amazing revelation. I guess I wanted it to be more challenging: I spent most of the movie saying to myself, “Yeah, I know all this, I get it already, now can we have some _plot_, please?” \*\* > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Munch_ > \*\*Yeah, but every two-bit Wednesday night comic has some crack about the Catholic Church. “Dogma” was no different - it brought up the same hackneyed jokes, but raised no particularly poignant observations. > > Count me in on the “ho-hum” crowd. Smith tries too hard.\*\* Yes, and yes. I think _Dogma_ was a piece of shit. I can’t stand a movie that thinks it’s smarter than it actually is. Even worse is a movie that thinks it’s _edgier_ and more _rebellious_ than it actually is. _Ooh, Jay fantasizes about gay sex! Shocking! God is a woman! Unheard of! A monster made out of shit! Ooh, we’re really breaking ground now!_ I actually like Matt Damon, but Affleck is a complete tool. Salma Hayek is nothing - _nothing_ - but annoying. I could go on and on, but I don’t want to think about this crappy movie anymore. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/28 "2003-02-06T04:15:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mockingbird \* > **So, either one loved Dogma or hated it.** Not really. I just found it rather indifferent, like the rest of Kevin Smith’s stuff. ---
**Author:** ![croaker67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/439d5e/32.png) [@croaker67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/croaker67)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/29 "2003-02-06T04:26:07Z")
I enjoyed Dogma for what it was… a movie. I didn’t read any underlying themes or pronounced any judgement upon it. Dogma was an hour or so of escapism and fun. You may agree or not, but in the end it’s still a movie. If you’re looking for hard hitting issues, try the evening news. ---
**Author:** ![non-native](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc8723/32.png) [@non-native](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/non-native)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/30 "2003-02-06T04:44:31Z")
I had heard so many good things about the movie, and it came up at the time when I was spending some time pondering about religion. So I went out to the video store and rented it. Hated it. It felt like a 2 hour long insult to my intelligence. I can see Kevin Smith and his smug smirk as he wrote the script. Like **cuauhtemoc** said, it thought it was a smarter than it was. The middle school level fart jokes don’t really help too much either. Thumbs down. Waaay down. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/31 "2003-02-06T14:13:51Z")
I’m another of the “Ho-Hum” gang. Nothing in the film in terms of the religion stuff was new. Many people believe Mary had other children; many believe God can be a woman; many believe the Catholic Church has lost it’s way and that spirituality is more important than silly doctrine. It was nothing new, and much of the beliefs I have myself, so I didn’t really mind or find it shocking (I am Catholic, and a lot of my more religious friends found it highly insulting and tried to petition against it…I just didn’t care). I found the basic plot idea good. Everything with George Carlin was funny as hell, and it had some fun and laughable bits. But, it was by far the worste Kevis Smith movie I’ve seen (I haven’t seen _Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back_ yet, though). There were way too many speaches given out by Damon and Affleck, and I fucking HATE Affleck. He’s got a grating voice, he mumbles, and he’s just an overall terrible actor…if it weren’t for Kevin Smith, he never would have ended up in movies. Damon wasn’t much better. Their little argument in the parking garage makes me want to claw my eyes out, it’s so horrible. And the final scene? Kinda funny, it fit alright, but you’d think with the success of _Chasing Amy_ KS would have enough money in the budget for decent special effects. They flying Angel Affleck looked like utter shit. Roger Coreman could have done better. But, I did like the bit about God having a fascination with skeet ball, and the bits with Alan Rickman were funny. Overall, I didn’t mind seeing it in theaters, but I haven’t had any interest in seeing it again. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/32 "2003-02-06T17:35:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*Oh, to the contrary, I got the point of the film: that Kevin Smith _shares_ that fascination of rules over spirituality. He dredges up arcania and dwells on it. Catholicism has moved on from the middle ages. But you wouldn’t guess from _Dogma_. \*\* Nor would you guess it from any Catholic I’ve ever met. ---
**Author:** ![Jberto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@Jberto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jberto)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/33 "2003-02-06T17:44:29Z")
I liked parts of _Dogma_, especially the scene on the bus (note my signature) and in the board room. The Shit Monster scene could have been done without altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/34 "2003-02-06T17:49:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Barbarian \* > \*\*Nor would you guess it from any Catholic I’ve ever met. \*\* What in the world does that mean? I’m guessing the only Catholics you’ve met have been 63 year old nuns. ---
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/35 "2003-02-06T18:00:22Z")
1.) Echoing the desire that the Crap Monster scene had been snipped. 2.) Could’ve ended about 20-30 minutes earlier, it just drug _on and on_ at the end. 3.) Didn’t translate well to the screen from the screenplay. I had read about half the script online a couple years before the film came out, I thought it was kind of clever…but that cleverness dulled a little in bringing it to the screen. Sometimes clever rants and monologues sound better in your head reading them then they do when an actor actually puts voice to them. 4.) The “point” of the film ended up being just another regurgitation of vague and formless feel-good theology that sounds _exactly_ like the sort of thing people say to seem profound, but that any 10 year old could have forumulated just as easily with as little commitment…so don’t make it seem like it’s a revelation. You could get the same ideas about religion that sum up this film from a waitress at a Starbucks, and it sounds just as wishy-washy in the movie as it would from the waitress. 5.) Waaaaaaay too much expository dialogue. Characters in this movie spend so much time explaining who and what they are, the details of their motivations, and explaining why things happened…well, it’s like reading a Piers Anthony novel. The rule of developing plot and character in films should be “show me _by_ what you say, not _with_ what you say.” ---
**Author:** ![Asylum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@Asylum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asylum)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/36 "2003-02-06T18:00:24Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Walloon_ > \*\*Smith, having started out as a comic book writer. confused what works in a comic book with what works in a screenplay. To be more blunt, the shit monster scene was an adolescent boy’s idea of what’s funny or entertaining. \*\* I’m not overly concerned with whether or not you liked the shit monster (I coulda lived with or without it), but you seem to be implying that comic books are adolescent boys entertainment and/or that Smith’s comics are written for such an audience. I’d disagree vehemently on both counts. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mockingbird \* > **He didn’t write a comic book until years later for _the now defunct Oni Press_, then Marvel Comics, and finally DC.** Italics mine. You better tell the guys at [Oni](http://www.onipress.com/) about that. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/37 "2003-02-06T19:52:01Z")
I liked Dogma, if only to see something as relatively arcane as Metatron represented in a movie. Nice angle with Alanis Morissette’s voice being fatal, too. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/38 "2003-02-06T20:08:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Munch \* > \*\*What in the world does that mean? I’m guessing the only Catholics you’ve met have been 63 year old nuns. \*\* I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting a nun. But every Catholic I’ve ever met has been certifiably kooky and worthy of being locked up in an insane asylum right away because their relationship to reality was non-existent. Their mental attitude (and ability) was akin to mere splinters floating downsteam in the great river of life. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/39 "2003-02-06T21:51:25Z")
I thought it was an interesting idea to base the plot on Christian mythology (and I’m not using that term dismissively; I just mean “myth” like “story”) and I think they did alright; _Michael_ was horrible. Even so, I have to agree with some people here that the witty, vitriolic satire that worked into the plot was really not all that clever. Despite **Barbarian** ’s experience, I have heard similar things tossed around by Catholics and even Catholic priests for many years; you’d be amazed how much internal dialogue there is on this sort of thing. However, I know of both pro-religious and anti-religious people who seemed to think it was the most atrocious thing to hit the Church since the 95 Theses. Also, I’m not a great film critic, and I can get by with sub-par acting in action and comedy films, but _holy cow_ that acting was bad!!!\* - - 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007/40 "2003-02-06T22:23:30Z")
It was funny. And it had some good points, from my (Protestant) point of view. It _was_ poorly structured, and ultimately less than the sum of its parts … but I still liked it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazing-dogma/153007.md?page=3)